<i>GALEX</i> UV survey of magnetic chemically peculiar stars in the <i>Kepler</i> prime field

ABSTRACT Magnetic chemically peculiar (mCP) stars are strongly magnetic upper main-sequence stars that exhibit light rotational variability due to an uneven surface distribution of certain peculiar elements, which may appear in phase at certain wavelengths and in antiphase to the flux at other wavelengths. We present a study of the properties of photometric variability of a sample of confirmed mCP stars (mostly Ap/CP2 stars), mCP star candidates, and several non-CP stars in the near-ultraviolet and visible wavelength regions based on observational data from the GALEX and Kepler prime missions. Antiphase variations between the near-ultraviolet and optical light curves are observed in the majority of mCP stars. We investigate the presence of a correlation of the variability amplitudes in both wavelength regions with effective temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity and calculate model atmospheres, spectral energy distributions, and synthetic light curves to connect our findings to theoretical models. While the theoretical calculations show that, at fixed abundances, a clear correlation between the light-curve amplitude ratios and effective temperature is expected, our sample does not show any correlation with the investigated properties. This may be due to the highly individualistic abundance patterns of our sample stars, which are the main contributors to the line blanketing in different wavelength bands.